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Comment by parineum | Hacker News Reader

I used to do electrical work when I was younger for my dad's company. The innovations in the blue color field might seem trivial but they are absolutely real.

Just the transition to modern romex with push in receptacles saves tons of time and effort in the part of the job you spend 90% of the time doing.

It's still manual labor but it's much less strenuous than it used to be and it's also much more efficient.

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Good rebuttal. I forget at times skilled trades are blue collar. Those people in this time are making a killing. My cousins are pipefitters, and make twice what I do as a 'Software Engineer', and I have no complaints, they deserve it.

I guess I was thinking of the lower tier blue collar laborers, where I had worked (landscaping, auto parts, etc) and especially 'pink collar', which I did not know existed until I googled it.

> the transition to modern romex with push in receptacles saves tons of time and effort in the part of the job you spend 90% of the time doing

If you will excuse me,

it is also case that the transition from toilet breaks to peeing in used soda bottles is adding crucial minutes of productivity to the Amazon warehouse worker's day.

</cheap quip>

I think the different experiences are two sides of the same coin: an increasing proportion of the working class are seeing a relentless pressure to optimise productivity in a way reminiscent of Taylor's Scientific Management. Where the setup needs the worker to be listened too, such as your light manufacturing example, this results in cumulative improvement. Otherwise, the tendency is to allow the workplace to become nakedly exploitative.

> The innovations in the blue color field might seem trivial but they are absolutely real.

Not an innovation in the field per-se but nevertheless an innovation that improves the daily routine of many people working in the field is the mobile phone and especially the very cheap data and voice subscriptions (compared to 10-15 years ago, say).

Just yesterday I had to call a locksmith at my apartment so that he would fix something at the bathroom door. During his entire intervention (45 minutes - one hour) he was also on his phone (via headphones) talking with one of his other coworkers and at some point with (what seemed to be) a close relative. That reminded me seeing the same scene with a public cleaning worker from our city talking with someone close on a phone (friend or relative) while raking the autumn leaves in front of my building.

Again, it's not something that improves their "productivity" or anything like that but imo it reduces some of the alienation of being cut off from your friends and close relatives for at least 8 or 9 hours a day because of work.

The new push in connections and joins are really amazing. I used some a few months ago for a small project. At first, I was skeptical of them, but after I used them, I saw how amazing they are. No more wire nuts.

Now-days many plumbers don't even solder copper pipes opting out quick and easy push or press fitting and/or PEX tubing.

Changing skirts and rollers on an ore crusher is still just as shitty a job as it's ever been.

Aren’t the push in things on outlets worse though?

Resistance in push-in clamp contacts is a little higher than soldered contacts, and about the same as screwed ones. Consistency for push-in contacts is far far better: Cold and sloppy soldering just doesn't happen, loose screws don't happen. Corrosion resistance is worse both for screwed and push-in contacts, but the push-in ones are self-healing: just wiggle it a little and it is fine again. Solder does also age and corrode, but very slowly. Both solder and screwed contacts are prone to loosen and break under vibration and movement (which shouldn't happen when wiring a house, but relevant e.g. for cars). You can do aerospace-grade soldering, which together with proper wiring design to reduce transferred force and vibration, will be sturdier than anything else, but also far far more difficult and expensive. Soldered contacts are also prone to degrade quickly when heated, e.g. when overtaxing a circuit or the (sloppily done) solder joint, which can happen at less than the circuit rating. Push-in clamps keep the contact pressure even with heat expansion, movement and deforming ageing wires.

So there are specifics one has to be aware of, but in most cases, you want push-in clamps. Soldering is the only alternative, but isn't really viable without the proper skills of the worker and inspection of all solder joints.

So my affection for set-screw marrs is misguided? Hard to admit.

Set-screw Marr? How the hell are those even legal anywhere, they are unusable without getting electrocuted when connecting them. Screw-on insulator cap? You are giving me the shivers...

If you need something with a screw, use https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%BCsterklemme#/media/Datei...

But almost always, really really, use Wago 221 (preferred) or Wago 2273. You won't want anything else anymore.

I don’t work on energized circuits. But thanks for the wago suggestion.

You are correct and it's weird that so many people are disagreeing. The backstab connectors are more prone to wire breakage than the traditional screw connector.

It is a relative thing though. We're talking about more likely to break after 10-15 years of the repetitive stress of plugging in stuff.

They are worse for whoever next has to swap out the outlet. Electrically it's probably slightly higher resistance than the alternatives, but it doesn't seem to really matter.

I added additional power outlets in my house to locations above existing outlets, and I had to struggle to get the push in clamp to release the wire at least half the time. I guess the builder used the cheapest outlets, but the screw option is much easier for servicing.

1. Electrical work is still back breaking work.

2. In a decent union, like local 6, it's not bad work. It's much better working conditions, and pays much more than the other trades.

3. If you are working non-union--it's a bitch. Terrible working conditions, low pay, supply your own tools, exploitive owners.

4. Yes--Romex, Scothlocks, and MC Cable, revolutionized the industry. It revolutionized it for the contractor.

5. Meaning they (the contractor) just except to you to work quicker.

6. In the old days, with knob/tube wiring, and soldering, the profession was more of an art. Today--it's about speed.

7. Today, a union electrician is expected to wire a new residential home in one day. (Believe me that's backbreaking work.)

8. While working as a electrician today it is much safer today, but the work is just as hard for non-union electricians. Non-union electricians work very hard. (In the past the death rate was so high for electricians, only Irish immigrants were doing the work.)

9. If any aimless youth reads this, and likes construction, get you C-10 license, or get into a union. Become a electrician, or elevator mechanic. Only use a non-union job as experience for your C-10 license.

(Come from a family of electricians, and 1 year working at Packbell park as an apprentice. I found another career, but do miss the regular income/benefits.)

Agreed, based on my own experience, observations.

As a kid, I was the IT for a mid-sized union shop, about 200 electricians in the field. Those electricians had it great. Certainly much better than me. Of course, I've met many tradespersons, union and non-union. The union workers generally have materially better lives.

My (idiot) son is a residential electrician with ambitions of growing his own business. I begged him to join the hall. Instead, he's worked for every kind bad employer. Been seriously injured multiple times. Wage theft. Etc.

At about 25, he wouldn't further debase himself by starting over at the hall. So he keeps being exploited.

Being non-union is probably fine if you have the ambition and chops to build up your own business.

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